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H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

economist.com

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Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#231

Post by neeleshs »

flukus wrote: post #223
neeleshs wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious to know what you are implying here. Indians in the US are making highest median income because of some kind of racism/cronyism favoring them? I always thought it's because a significant percentage (not all) who immigrate are at the top already

Or a combination of both. It is something I've noticed, companies with indians doing the hiring end up with a lot of indians, companies with chinese doing the hiring end up with a lot of chinese. It's rare to find indians in a chinese software shop and vise versa. White people don't have a monopoly on racism.

I never said white people have monopoly on racism. Like your ancedata, my experience with white people have been completely unracist, very welcoming and acknowledging talent. Believe me, I've seen indian racism first hand back home, and it's as ugly as it can get. "Racism", somehow, seems to be hardwired in humans, given its prevalence.

Also, ancedata, I've seen engineering departments evenly split between Indian and Chinese, marketing and sales mostly towards Caucasian.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#232

Post by jitix »

prasadjoglekar wrote: post #20
ta78637 wrote: post #7

Article's concluding sentences: "Reducing the number of visas for TCS and its brethren would probably result in them shifting work to India. A better change would be to end the rule whereby H-1B recipients must stay with the company that sponsored them. For within their ranks may lurk the next Elon Musk or Sergey Brin." Personally I find this line of thought (cliche?) frustrating. Not just because apparently us prole…

The H1 visa prohibits all paid work except for the sponsoring employer. This lock-in is precisely what makes these visas lucrative to TCS etc. Removing the lack of mobility will remove a big perverse incentive.

As a person on H1B I can say that the lock-in is the most frustrating part. I can easily change jobs but I cannot create apps for mobile devices or monetize my website.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#233

Post by int_19h »

usernametbd wrote: post #90
inlinefordecade wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it appears TCS and Infosys are being made the fall guys to keep the existing system of Indentured servitude in place for another decade or more. [edit:] Real villain is Microsoft, which has the largest lobbyists machine among the software companies in D.C. to make sure they are able to keep their indenture servants for as many years as possible.

Why is Microsoft villain? Does it provide its H1B employees below market salary? Genuinely asking as I've seen H1B employees at MS paid a huge salary, equal to their citizen counterparts, and also they've been freely jumping companies to get an even bigger pay raise.

As an ex-H1B MSFT employee, there are a few data points I can share.

First, to the best of my knowledge, my salary was not lower than that of my colleagues with citizenship at any point. Nor did I get fewer perks, formally or informally (ability to take days off as and when needed etc).

Second, my H1B status was never used as leverage when talking about raises, amount of time spent at work, and so on. I was never pressured to work more "or else".

Third, Microsoft fully sponsored my green card application, including all direct and indirect filing and legal fees. They were clearly interested in getting me off H1B status as soon as possible.

This is an anecdote. However, all people I know in MS who are or were on H1B have similar experiences. All either have green cards by now, or are in the process of obtaining them, with very few willing exceptions (as in, people who voluntarily decided to not apply, despite all the prodding to do so).

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#234

Post by int_19h »

anarazel wrote: post #179
CriticalSection wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they'll just have to settle for (horrors!) American workers.

Meh. If H1B were reshaped to actually be for specialist workers as it was intended (at least by some), then that's a lot easier said than done. I got to the US on a temporary work visa (not H1B because of loosing the lottery), and I'd find positions for somebody with my and a bunch of other specializations several times over. By auctioning based on salary you're preferring areas with absurd costs of living - which is…

You can always adjust salaries for cost of living in the area to have a more apples to apples comparison.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#235

Post by nullnilvoid »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #145
nullnilvoid wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The current system has been abused by Indian out-sourcing companies such as TCS, Infosys. The vast majority of highly skilled workers cannot get H-1B visas at all.

As abhorrent as the situation is, the body shops are only taking advantage of a legal windfall that American corporate greed has lobbied for. The system has been rigged. You can't completely blame the actors taking advantage of it.

We are just advocating reform and change. The loophole has been leaking for such a long time. Obama knew the problem a long time ago and did NOT fix it. The middle-class wages have been stagnating for many years. The middle-class families are shrinking. A recent research paper found that H-1B visas have kept down wages by up to 5.1% and employment of US workers by 10.8% between 1994 and 2001. Here is the paper: http://www.nber.org/papers/w23153

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#236

Post by jeevand »

gragas wrote: post #200

>I assure you, most american-born students get a free pass in stanford/berkeley/CMU if you pit them against a foreign-born. You have no idea what you're talking about. I have first hand experience with this and Americans don't "get a free pass" by any means. Also, what about black people and hispanic people? Are they the lowest earners in America by far because they "don't want to make $$"? According to common consen…

It is not a miracle. Indians immigrating to US are more educated than the general US population [1] (40.6% have graduate degree, 32.3% have bachelor's).

Have you also thought about why Indian American kids win spelling bee's or Jews win Nobel Prize disproportionately when compared to their population?

Comparing Indians or Asians to blacks is not fair. They are mostly recent immigrants (except few brought in as labourers) and did not have to suffer through the horrors of slavery which left blacks with broken family structure and other things (It is complex, like housing seggregation where the black neighbourhoods did not increase in wealth when compared to white neighbourhoods, criminal justice system)

[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/30/5-facts-abou...

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#237

Post by whitenoice »

gragas wrote: post #178
jeffjose wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans don't get PhDs because graduate schools are flooded with applications from those trying to gain entry to the US. Once in industry foreigners tend to hire only members of their own race further discouraging Americans from pursuing advanced degrees. That's not true. The American Universities don't choose to admit foreign students just because. The good schools always try to balance the mix of students admit…

>That's not true. The American Universities don't choose to admit foreign students just because. The good schools always try to balance the mix of students admitted into the program. Then why do Indians make up more than 30% of my school's CS program, despite them making up less than 1% of the US population?

Probably cause the admission committee thought all those students are equally talented as you are. India has a huge population with 50% of its population below the age of 25. India and China together are close to 1/3rd of the worlds population. You should be happy the you are getting to interact with the cream of smart students from these countries :) Key part of education is learning and working with your smart peers.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#238

Post by an_account »

hiram112 wrote: post #196
rajathagasthya wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US work indefinitely in this country This is the discussion that's always missing whenever H1B is discussed anywhere. It always gets hijacked by Indian IT companies abusing the system. Does the administration have a plan on how to deal with students who get their degrees from US universities, who also seek H1Bs to work? If they don't make this…

> Guess who benefits then? Not the US. If demand at US universities goes down, they might just have to reduce prices. Yeah that would certainly suck for the millions of recent college grads working gig jobs, indebted with tens of thousands of dollars.

Actually the opposite at many public universities. "Out of state" and international students subsidize in state students because they pay far greater tuition.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#239

Post by nullnilvoid »

zzleeper wrote: post #98

I went through the entire comment thread and feel like you guys are missing a lot of the H1B benefits by focusing just on tech and the effect of the Indian consultancies. Most PhDs, specially in STEM, math, stats, econ, etc. are not American. And almost all of them end up with a H1B visa at some point if they remain in the US. It might be lottery based if you go to work at any firm, or quota-free if it is in academia…

H1B will not be killed. It will be changed. The loophole will be fixed so that Indian outsourcing body shops will not be able to abuse the system. Currently, the vast majority of the H1B visas are hoarded by Indian outsourcing companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro etc. The real highly skilled workers such as US-educated PhD graduates cannot even get one at all. The new system hopefully will keep US-educated graduates and prevent those Indian consulting body shops.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#240

Post by rajathagasthya »

beagle3 wrote: post #189
rajathagasthya wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US work indefinitely in this country This is the discussion that's always missing whenever H1B is discussed anywhere. It always gets hijacked by Indian IT companies abusing the system. Does the administration have a plan on how to deal with students who get their degrees from US universities, who also seek H1Bs to work? If they don't make this…

There is a F1 and J1 visas for studying (which allows on the job training and some work, at least one year following end of formal study etc). These could easily be extended to answer this - and I believe it should be independent of the H1B itself.

I should've put out a disclaimer in my previous comment, I was an F1 student now working in SV as an H1B. So I've to state my bias. Why do you think it should be independent? F1 students pay a lot of money to study here and I think there should be a fairly easy path to work for a considerable amount of time here. I believe it's mutually beneficial. But I'd love to know alternative views.
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